HIST202: History of Europe, 1800 to the Present

Unit 9: Cold War Conflicts and Social Transformations, 1945-1985By 1945, a second world war and European global domination were over.
This created a power vacuum, and the United States and the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) moved from reluctant wartime allies to
deadly adversaries. In this East versus West contest, Communist USSR
and Soviet-controlled eastern Europe were pitted against the democratic
United States and western Europe. Although these two factions never
clashed on the battlefield, the conflict was evident in military
coalitions, a nuclear arms race, espionage, proxy wars, propaganda, and
technological competition, such as the Space Race. For these reasons,
the forty year period following World War II is known as the “Cold
War.”

The Cold War continued to dominate global politics for decades and was
a direct cause of the Korean War (1950-1953), the Vietnam War
(1959-1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), and the Soviet War in
Afghanistan (1979-1989). But in the late 1980s, the United States
increased diplomatic, economic, and military pressures on the USSR,
resulting in Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s introduction of the
liberal reforms of perestroika (“reconstruction”) and glasnost
(“openness”). However, these Communist reforms weakened the bonds that
held the Soviet Union together. In 1989, revolutions staged in Hungary,
East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania successfully
overthrew Communism, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In this unit, we will study the clash between democracy and Communism
between 1945 and 1985, and we will examine the lasting social, economic,
and political consequences of the Cold War conflict.

Unit 9 Time Advisory
This unit will take you 11 hours to complete.

☐ Subunit 9.1: 3.5 hours

☐ Subunit 9.2: 2 hours

☐ Subunit 9.3: 1.5 hours

☐ Subunit 9.4: 4 hours

Unit9 Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this unit, the student will be able to:

Assess the meaning of the term “Cold War.”

Identify THE causes and major events that contributed to the Cold
War AND discuss important related issues, such as inevitability of
the war and the connection between interventionism and security.

Assess the global political, social, and cultural legacies of the
decades-long confrontation between the United Sates and the Soviet
Union.

Instructions: Please read the entire webpage in order to get a good
overview of origins and characteristics of the Cold War.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

9.1.1 Origins of the Cold War
- Reading: Suffolk Community College: History Department’s “The Cold
War” and Dr. Steven Kreis’s The History Guide: Lectures on Twentieth
Century Europe: “Lecture 14: The Origins of the Cold War”
Links: Suffolk Community College: History Department’s “The Cold
War” (HTML) and Dr.
Steven Kreis’s The History Guide: Lectures on Twentieth Century
Europe: “Lecture 14: The Origins of the Cold
War” (HTML)

Instructions: First, please read Suffolk Community Colleges's
entire article to get a good overview of the Cold War. Then, read
the entire lecture by Dr. Kreis to get sense of the causes of the
conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States and its
allies. Please note that these readings cover subunit 9.1.2.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Please read the excerpts from Churchill's speech and
Stalin's reply to Churchill linked above. In the 1946 excerpt from
an interview with Josef Stalin, Stalin defends and legitimizes the
expansion of Communism in postwar eastern Europe as a response to
Churchill's speech. Stalin argues that the proliferation of
Communism will enhance security and protect peoples.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Please read the entire article to get a good overview
of the Korean War, the first military clash of the Cold War.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

9.2 Postwar Social Transformations
- Reading: HistoryDoctor.net: Dr. Larry E. Gates, Jr.’s “Social
Transformation in Europe after World War II” and Dr. Steven Kreis’s
The History Guide: Lectures on Twentieth Century Europe: “Lecture
15: 1968: The Year of the Barricades”
Links: HistoryDoctor.net: Dr. Larry E. Gates, Jr.’s “Social
Transformation in Europe after World War
II
(HTML)and Dr. Steven Kreis’s The History Guide:Lectures on
Twentieth Century Europe:“Lecture 15: 1968: The Year of the
Barricades”
(HTML)

Instructions: Please read both resources linked here in their
entirety. The first reading presents innovations in science and
technology, a changing social structure, and new roles for youth and
women in the postwar era. Dr. Kreis's lecture 15 will give you a
sense of transformation of European society in the 1950s and
1960s.
Please note these readings will cover topics in sections
9.2.1-9.2.3.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

9.2.1 Science and Technology9.2.2 Class Structure9.2.3 New Roles for Youth and Women
- Reading: College of Staten Island: Professor Catherine Lavender’s
“The New Woman” and Marxist.org’s version of Simone de Beauvoir's
The Second Sex: “Introduction: Woman as Other”
Links: College of Staten Island: Professor Catherine Lavender’s
“The New
Woman”
(HTML) and Marxist.org’s version of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second
Sex: “Introduction: Woman as
Other”
(HTML)

Instructions: Please read both texts linked above in their
entirety. By reading Professor Lavender’s article, you will learn a
broad overview about the twentieth century feminist movement.
Written in 1949, de Beauvoir's text was the definitive declaration
of women’s independence. De Beauvoir, a French philosopher, argues
that women throughout history have been defined as the “other” sex.
She insists on the reality of sexual difference, but she also argues
that it is immoral to use that difference to exploit women. Her
well-known phrase, “one is not born but becomes a woman,” introduces
what is now known as the sex-gender distinction.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Please watch the entire 77-minute video lecture. To
open the file, click on “Launch video in a new player.” This will
open the file in RealPlayer. This lecture will help you to
understand the complex factors that caused the collapse of the
European empires in Africa and Asia, from the 18th
century through the 20th century.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Please read the both webpages in their entirety.
The first reading, “The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe,
discusses the collapse of Communist in Eastern Europe and the
downfall of the Soviet Union. The second reading, Dr. Kreis's
lecture 16, examines the Khrushchev and Gorbachev eras as well as
the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
Please note these readings cover topics for all of subunit 9.4.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Please read the entire webpage to get a good overview
of the policies and rule of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

9.4.2 Revolutions of 1989
- Reading: George Mason University: Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media’s “1989 Revolutions of Eastern Europe”
Link: George Mason University: Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and
New Media’s “1989 Revolutions of Eastern
Europe”
(HTML)

Instructions: Please read the entire webpage for a brief overview
of the outbreak of revolutions in the Soviet bloc countries in
1989.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Please watch the entire 50-minute video lecture.
This lecture will help you to understand the complex factors that
caused the collapse of the Soviet Union: nationalism in Eastern bloc
countries, economic depression, and democratic opposition
movements.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Please watch Chapters 2 through 26 of this lecture
(approximately 70 minutes). You may click on the hyperlink for each
chapter listed under “Watch the full program,” or you may click on
“Watch the full program,” fast-forwarding through the first 2
minutes and 11 seconds of the Chatauqua Institution's introduction
for Dr. Leffler.
This lecture, held at a conference hosted by Chautauqua
Institution, will give you an excellent overview of Cold War
policies in the 1970s and 1980s, and it will help you to understand
the legacy of the conflict in a post-Soviet world.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Listen to this audio lecture, in which Professor T.
Mills Kelly of George Mason University discusses the breakup of
Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He focuses on mass dissatisfaction with
the Communist and post-Communist political regimes in Yugoslavia and
efforts by ethnic nationalists to resolve centuries of political and
cultural tension in the region through military force. Kelly goes
into great detail about the breakup of Yugoslavia and explains the
motivations of different ethnic groups involved in the decade-long
conflict.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.

Reading: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International
Information Programs’ The Berlin Wall 20 Years Later: Professor
Robert J. Leiber’s “A Contested Future”
Link: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Information
Programs’ The Berlin Wall 20 Years Later: Professor Robert J.
Leiber’s “A Contested
Future”(PDF)

Instructions: Click on the “Link to Resources” link at the bottom
of the page to open the PDF file. Read pages 13 through 20 in the
PDF file.

Terms of Use: Please respect the copyright and terms of use
displayed on the webpage above.